The present invention relates generally to the field of retirement investment planning systems and methods.
Different individuals have different financial goals for retirement. For many people, an important financial goal during retirement is to have “income forever.” That is, such individuals wish to avoid running out of money while they are still alive. As part of this desire, individuals want to have enough money to pay long term care costs and health care costs during later years in life. At the same time, many people want to have money for leisure spending, particularly in the early years of retirement, to enjoy some of the things that they did not have the time to enjoy previously, such as traveling. Also, many people want to have money to pass on to heirs and/or charitable organizations.
Individuals may have different tolerances for different types of risk in connection with different ones of the above goals. For example, the retiree may be relatively risk averse in connection with the retiree's desire to avoid running out of money. On the other hand, in order to have the potential of greater investment returns, the retiree may be willing to live with more risk in connection with wealth to be passed on to heirs and/or charitable organizations. Different levels of risk tolerance have different implications for the types of investments that a retiree should be holding and the return on investment which the retiree can reasonably expect.
Planning for retirement is difficult due to the many seemingly conflicting goals and risks that a retiree faces. Retirees may have accumulated retirement savings well in excess of what is needed to provide for basic needs spending, but may be overly-cautious about spending it too quickly during early years of retirement, preventing them from fully enjoying the traveling and other activities that are supposed to be part of the golden years of life. Maximizing the benefit that can be derived from a given set of retirement assets can be difficult, particularly while taking into account a given retiree's tolerance for risk.
An ongoing need exists for retirement planning tools which help maximize the benefit that can be derived from a given set of retirement assets, while also taking into account a given retiree's tolerance for risk. An ongoing need also exists for retirement planning tools which allow for an accurate identification of the goals of the retiree and associated risks, which help distinguish between different investment goals, and/or which help plan more efficiently for each. Although certain advantages of systems and methods which incorporate the teachings herein are described, it will be appreciated that the teachings herein may be used to implement other systems and methods which do not exhibit some or any of these advantages, but rather which exhibit other advantages.